ibanez4life SZ!
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Hey guys! I have a Mesa story that I felt I should share!
So, I ordered a quad of E34Ls and a pair of GZ34s from eurotubes a day ago, received them in the mail today!
From the very start, Bob and Jay were very helpful , always answering my huge e-mails to every last detail!
So, for all their help, I thought I'd finally take action on my curiosity and try the tubes from them!
With the new tubes in hand, I went to jam with the band! Took the living room apart, set up out rigs, turned up, and went.
Like always, the same little nuicances came out in my tone....especially the looseness and flabbiness as of late. No matter what I dialed in, I could not get a tight, articulate tone.....
So, after playing on my stock tubes for about an hour, I powered down, unplugged, and swapped out the stock rectifier tubes for the GZ's!
Powered on....warm up....turn on....I AM BLOWN AWAY! The hype around these tubes is completely justified! They tightened my tone beyond belief! I have been playing much faster as of late, and this is very important to me! My bass now cuts, while thumping! It is razor sharp....not muddy, and completely spreading out to nothingness. It stays together the whole way!
I couldn't stop playing! It brought a whole new life to my entire rig! My guitar sounded better than ever! I could hear every note, even in more complex chordings! And now I can plam mute quickly and actually hear what I'm playing! I have actually found that I now have much more usable gain, as it doesn't turn to a complete mess!
As you can see, I'm ecstatic! It is really sad how Mesa, which builds such high quality amps, buts such poor tubes in there. There really is a beast waiting inside! You just have to unleash it wih a retube!
Best part......I still have the quad of JJ E34Ls and a quad of JJ 6L6's to try! :twisted:
So, for anyone that owns a mesa and just can't find their tone 100%....try a retube! It has done wonders for me, and can definitely help others! My advice.....do it step by step.....start with recto tubes....then poweramp, and finally preamps. By taking small steps, you can try to solve your problem in more variables! If you do it all at once, you just may skip over that small problem!
My final rant: After this, I have actually found my Keeley modded SD-1 to be obsolete to me....I can dial in an even better tone...identical, only more harmonically rich, with channel 2 raw, and there is no need for boost or tightening!
So, part #2.....mesas are so versatile, and so amazingly built, that there is really no need for many effects....especially dirt boxes.
Only thing I run is a tuner, wah, and noise decimator....nothing else!
Hope this helps a bit for people looking to finalize their mesa tone! They are amazing amps. I couldn't image owning something different! They just need a little swap in the right direction!
P.S. Keeley Modded Boss SD-1 and Mesa 5U4GB rectifiers tubes are for sale, so if anyone is interested, please PM me!
So, I ordered a quad of E34Ls and a pair of GZ34s from eurotubes a day ago, received them in the mail today!
From the very start, Bob and Jay were very helpful , always answering my huge e-mails to every last detail!
So, for all their help, I thought I'd finally take action on my curiosity and try the tubes from them!
With the new tubes in hand, I went to jam with the band! Took the living room apart, set up out rigs, turned up, and went.
Like always, the same little nuicances came out in my tone....especially the looseness and flabbiness as of late. No matter what I dialed in, I could not get a tight, articulate tone.....
So, after playing on my stock tubes for about an hour, I powered down, unplugged, and swapped out the stock rectifier tubes for the GZ's!
Powered on....warm up....turn on....I AM BLOWN AWAY! The hype around these tubes is completely justified! They tightened my tone beyond belief! I have been playing much faster as of late, and this is very important to me! My bass now cuts, while thumping! It is razor sharp....not muddy, and completely spreading out to nothingness. It stays together the whole way!
I couldn't stop playing! It brought a whole new life to my entire rig! My guitar sounded better than ever! I could hear every note, even in more complex chordings! And now I can plam mute quickly and actually hear what I'm playing! I have actually found that I now have much more usable gain, as it doesn't turn to a complete mess!
As you can see, I'm ecstatic! It is really sad how Mesa, which builds such high quality amps, buts such poor tubes in there. There really is a beast waiting inside! You just have to unleash it wih a retube!
Best part......I still have the quad of JJ E34Ls and a quad of JJ 6L6's to try! :twisted:
So, for anyone that owns a mesa and just can't find their tone 100%....try a retube! It has done wonders for me, and can definitely help others! My advice.....do it step by step.....start with recto tubes....then poweramp, and finally preamps. By taking small steps, you can try to solve your problem in more variables! If you do it all at once, you just may skip over that small problem!
My final rant: After this, I have actually found my Keeley modded SD-1 to be obsolete to me....I can dial in an even better tone...identical, only more harmonically rich, with channel 2 raw, and there is no need for boost or tightening!
So, part #2.....mesas are so versatile, and so amazingly built, that there is really no need for many effects....especially dirt boxes.
Only thing I run is a tuner, wah, and noise decimator....nothing else!
Hope this helps a bit for people looking to finalize their mesa tone! They are amazing amps. I couldn't image owning something different! They just need a little swap in the right direction!
P.S. Keeley Modded Boss SD-1 and Mesa 5U4GB rectifiers tubes are for sale, so if anyone is interested, please PM me!
